How did a (lowercase) god named Yahweh from the pantheon of the ancient Edomites become the one and only (uppercase) God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? It's a fascinating story that calls into question just how monotheistic the ancient Israelites really were...

For this episode, Helen and Dave are joined by Francesca Stavrakopoulou, professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, and author of the award-winning book, God: An Anatomy.

Join the Time Travelers Club! For $5/month, you can support the podcast (thanks!) and even contribute to the show. Subscribers can ask their very own questions on the air and access special bonus content exclusively for Club members. There's still time to ask a question to John Cleese! Learn more >

More on Yahweh from Bible Odyssey, our new content partner:

• What did Yahweh look like?
• Worshipping Yahweh outside the province of Yehud
• Divine Council
• Baal

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Season 2 of Biblical Time Machine is coming soon! We've already recorded a slate of terrific episodes that will be dropping in the next few weeks.  Until then, check out the Time Travelers Club, a new way to get involved with the podcast.

The Time Travelers Club is a subscription service that lets you support Biblical Time Machine in exchange for some pretty sweet perks, including the opportunity to ask your questions on the air! Subscriptions are $5/month. 

Below is a schedule of upcoming recording dates and topics. Members of the Time Travelers Club can send us questions for any topic or guest, and we will read them on the air.  Or even better,  you send us an audio file of you asking your question and we'll play it on the podcast!

Upcoming Recording Dates

• Sept. 7 "When Christians Were Jews" What was life like for the first generation of Jesus's followers after the Crucifixion? Guest: Paula Fredriksen
• Sept. 11 "John Cleese and The Life of Brian" Did Monty Python strive for historical accuracy in its classic biblical satire? Guest: John Cleese
• Sept. 13 "The Woman Taken into Adultery" What are the literary origins of this powerful episode where Jesus invites those without sin to "cast the first stone"? Guest: Jennifer Knust
• Sept. 18 "Jesus and Jewish Purity Laws" Was Jesus really in opposition to the Jewish purity laws? Guest: Matthew Thiessen
• Sept. 20 "Childhood in the Ancient World" What was daily life like for children in Hebrew Bible and New Testament times? Guest: Kristine Garroway
• Sept. 21 "What Do We Know About the Gospel of John?" The 4th gospel stands apart from the synoptics stylistically and theologically. What do we know about the community where it was written and how it shaped the text? Guest: Mark Goodacre
• Sept. 29 "The Queen of Sheba" What do we know about the ancient kingdom of Cush, one possible home of the biblical character, the Queen of Sheba? Guest: Stacy Davis
• Oct. 2 "God's Monsters" How ancient belief systems shaped the monsters, demons and shape-shifters that appear in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Guest: Esther Hamori
• Oct. 11 "Pagan Writers on Jesus" What ancient Greek and Roman authors wrote about Jesus and his followers. Guest: Margaret Williams
• Oct. 30 "God's Ghostwriters" The little-known role of slaves as the scribes who penned and transmitted the New Testament. Guest: Candida Moss
• TBD "War and Weapons in Ancient Judaea" What was the reality of warfare in the 1st-century? Guest: Guy Stiebel

Thanks for listening and thanks for supporting Biblical Time Machine. We hope that you're excited for Season 2. 

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine

Thank you loyal listeners for making Season 1 of Biblical Time Machine such a success! In this short recap, Helen and Dave look back on the first 30 episodes and drop some hints about what's to come in Season 2.

We'll be taking a short pause to catch up on recordings and make plans for an even bigger and better second season of Biblical Time Machine. But don't fret, we'll be back with new episodes before you know it.

In the meantime, keep sending us your emails (we respond to each one!) and please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. 

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

The existence of the 12 tribes of Israel is central to the narrative of the Hebrew Bible. The tribes were named after the 12 sons of the patriarch Jacob and believed to be their direct descendants. As the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, wandered the desert for 40 years, and eventually conquered and settled the “promised land” of Canaan, they did it all as members of these 12 named tribes.

But do we have any evidence outside of the Bible that the 12 Tribes actually existed? Our guest, Andrew Tobolowsky, has studied the history of the 12 Tribes both within the biblical texts and beyond, and has some intriguing theories to how the idea of the 12 Tribes originally took form and why it's endured to this day. 

• Check out Andrew's book, The Myth of the 12 Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Learn how a humdrum Hebrew word for "obstacle/adversary" morphed over the centuries into the goat-hoofed, pitchfork-wielding embodiment of all evil. Our guest TJ Wray traces the biblical and historical evolution of Satan from a side character in the book of Job to the snarling chaos monster of Revelation. 

• Check out TJ's book, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots, co-authored with Gregory Mobley
• Special thanks to listener Daniel Kline for this episode topic suggestion. Email us with your own ideas for future episodes and we'll shout you out on air. 
• If you're enjoying the show, please rate and review us on your favorite podcasting app. Thanks!

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

For more than 100 years, archeologists have been scouring the Holy Land for tangible proof that the Bible and its accounts are historically true, but they've largely come up empty handed. Still, modern archeology is one of our greatest resources for understanding the ancient societies that wrote these timeless texts — their beliefs, their rituals and their daily lives.

We're thrilled to welcome the legendary biblical archeologist Eric Meyers as our guest. Eric and his wife Carol (who joined us for an episode about women in Ancient Israel) conducted digs in Israel and Italy for more than 40 years and may have been the inspiration for Indiana Jones (or maybe not). You can read all about their adventures in Eric's new memoir, An Accidental Archeologist. 

• Enjoying Biblical Time Machine? Rate and review us on your favorite podcast app
• Email us with episode suggestions!

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Finally, an episode about Josephus! Josephus is not only our best source for life in Roman-ruled Judaea, but also our only source. (Much like Dave is his parents' favorite, and only, son.)  Josephus wrote A LOT about the Jewish wars with Rome and Jewish history in general, but scholars usually take his accounts with a grain of salt. As a Jew and a Roman citizen during a period of great tumult, Josephus had his own version of history to tell.

We welcome Helen's colleague Kimberley Czajkowski, an expert on 1st-century Judaea, to introduce us to the real Josephus, one of the most important and controversial writers from the ancient world. 

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament lists dozens of musical instruments, and we know that the Song of Songs was... well... a song, so what role did music play in Ancient Israel? A big one! Special guest Jonathan Friedmann joins Helen and Dave to talk about his favorite ancient instrument (hint: it has strings), why the high priest in the Temple wore bells on his robes, and to settle the argument once and for all what the  psalms originally sounded like.

Special thanks to listener Laura Laster who sent us the idea for this episode. If you want to hear your name on the "air," send us an email with your very own ingenious episode idea.

And check out Jonathan's new podcast Amusing Jews! 

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

As much as 80% of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was written during and immediately after the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC. As our guest Anja Klein explains in this fascinating episode, the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC was an inflection point in the history of the Jewish people. In Babylon, the exiled elites of the Kingdom of Judah had to forge a new identity. And out of that trauma (and resilience) came a compelling story of a chosen people and their one true God. 

• Email us with your episode topic ideas. We love to hear from you!
• Rate and review us on your favorite podcasting app. Thanks!

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Stephen was stoned to death. Peter was crucified (upside down). For early Christians, the highest form of devotion was to suffer and die like Jesus. Those martyrs became the first saints, and their bones and other "relics" were venerated throughout Christendom as part of a "cult of the dead," explains our guest, Kyle Smith.  

• Read Kyle's fascinating book, Cult of the Dead: A Brief History of Christianity
• Email us with your episode topic ideas
• Rate and review us on your favorite podcasting app. Thanks!

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.